The Walking Dead Has Gone To Significant Lengths To Keep Cliffhanger From Being Spoiled

It’s been five months since Negan brought his bat down on the camera, a stand in for a certain core character’s skull, in The Walking Dead‘s season six finale. In that time, the entire fan base has been asking themselves who Negan killed and seeking out the answer in every nook and cranny of the Internet.

Despite their best efforts, spoiler-hungry fans have not been able to chow down on the answers they seek.

It’s extra effort from the cast and crew which has enabled The Walking Dead to keep its victim’s identity a secret throughout the off-season.

“We’ve gone to pretty significant lengths,” says The Walking Dead executive producer Greg Nicotero. “That scene was shot on the backlot, because we didn’t want it to be shot out in public where people can climb trees, or for telephoto lenses, to capture something. It’s unfortunate, because those people, their job is to ruin the show, and our job is to preserve the experience of the show. So we do have to spend a lot of energy and a lot of effort preserving the experience of watching the show. It’s just the way the world is right now, and it’s an unfortunate thing.”

The team hasn’t even painted the victim’s name on the Alexandria walls of the Senoia, Georgia set, so if a shot of the characters adding the victim’s name on the wall of the dead makes its way into the first couple of episodes, it was added months after the premiere was shot.

The extra lengths don’t stop there, though. The season 7 trailer for The Walking Dead which debuted at San Diego Comic Con contained zero new footage of the eleven potential victims, only featuring the core characters in a flashback montage and allowing Negan to take centerstage. AMC even threatened a lawsuit against a group of fans who actively seek out spoilers to share with others.

The Walking Dead returns for its seventh season on October 23 at 9 PM ET on AMC.

(via EW)